Mozambique's Ministry of Transport and Communications (MTC) has confirmed the expansion of the cellular network and conclusion of migration to Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) as priority projects going forward.

Speaking at the 35th Coordinating Council organised by MTC in Gaza Province last week, Carlos Alberto Fortes Mesquita, Minister of Transport and Communications in Mozambique told private and public sector attendees that there is much more work to be done.

"We need to reflect deeply on our performance and outline the roadmap to achieve the noble objectives set out in the Government's Five Year Program 2015-2019 and the 2017 Economic and Social Plan. We must remember that we have only four months left, and much more has yet to be done to have a direct impact on the established macro-economic and social indicators, which are going to be indicators of economic and GDP growth."

Mesquita mentioned the expansion of cellular mobile telephone network to more localities in Mozambique, as well as the conclusion of the process of migration from analogue to digital broadcasting among key projects for the rest of 2017.

He stressed that while the need for a skilled and competent workforce to achieve these which will help to attract domestic and foreign investment for the country.

"We will not hesitate to appoint cadres based on fair and rigorous selection criteria with acknowledged attributes of competence, professionalism, dynamism, a spirit of self-esteem and entrepreneurs, in order to take on the Leadership of the institutions and companies in the sector, from whom we aim for good management practices, privilege of internal relations, healthy inter-institutional and fundamentally results-oriented."

Mozambique's 2017 Economic and Social Plan has set a GDP growth target of 5.5%.

The plan, which was passed in the Mozambican parliament late last year, aims to roll out fifty new locations for mobile services across the country.

The World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Index 2016-2017 placed Mozambique in 127th place out of 138 countries for its technological readiness.

Mozambique is one of a small group of African countries that have completed the deployment of DTT. Other countries include Malawi, Morocco, Rwanda and Tanzania according to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).